The town’s handling of an alleged Cotuit zoning violation has unveiled an egregious case of selective enforcement by the town building department. This issue has resulted in six years of emotional grief for a family, a resulting court case, a current appeal and – too late – official misgivings and change in enforcement practice.

Since 1981, building department officials were aware – off and on – that a single-family zoned property at 181 School St., Cotuit housed a detached living unit, thus considered illegal in the absence of permits and approvals to the contrary. The property at the time was owned by Ruth Anne Grover who had applied for permits in 1981 ostensibly to create a garage workshop.

The work expanded into an apartment and it was later rented out by Grover. Later in 1981, the permit discrepancy was discovered by the town’s building department. When summoned to meet with the building department to explain it, the owner allegedly sent a sitting judge to the meeting, after which the issue disappeared for nearly a quarter century.

Much of the information in this column, stems from a deposition of current Building Commissioner Tom Perry, court findings, current owners Burt Russo (who has appeared several times before the town council seeking redress) and his wife, Susan Limoncelli, who filed suit against the town and won her major complaint in civil court last March, only to now be further aggravated by an appeal by the town.

From the time the garage was converted into a living unit and discovered shortly thereafter in 1981 by then Building Commissioner Joseph Daluz, to a point in 1989, the owner evidently evaded higher property taxes because assessors were not made aware the property had sprouted an extra living unit, according to the deposition.

In wasn’t until 1989, when another room was added to the main house, requiring a building permit, that assessors learned of the living unit added in 1981, which had expanded from a one-room affair to three rooms including a loft bedroom, according to the deposition. While paperwork funneled through the building department for the 1989 work on the main house, the garage living unit continued to be ignored by the town and no citations issued.

As Limoncelli and Russo signed a purchase and sale agreement for the property in 2005, Linda Edson, the town amnesty investigator, unearthed the “illegal” unit but was prohibited from acting on it by Building Commissioner Perry, he relates in the deposition.

(Edson meanwhile, has complained of errors in last week’s summary of deposition dates and other general facts and also about this writer’s choice of words. She was invited to specify her disagreements with the deposition summary in writing but declined the invitation or further conversation.)

Perry explained in his deposition that he acted in the tradition of former commissioner Ralph Crossen who preferred, Perry noted, not to get “entangled” in the middle of a purchase and sale agreement. Perry says he directed Edson to wait until the sale was completed.

Only then, several weeks after the sale, was Limoncelli informed of the supposedly illegal living unit on her property, she said. From this corner, three things seem seriously askew, based on Perry’s testimony. The first was that the building department lowered the boom on the wrong parties and allowed the previous owner, who had been overlooked by the town tax-wise from 1981 to 1989, to escape without sanctions whatsoever. If that isn’t apparent selective enforcement, then what is?

Secondly, Perry had misgivings about what had happened and changed the rule that henceforth, citations would be issued regardless of what stage a potential sale was in. And third, Edson, who had posed as tenant, according to the deposition, also took it upon herself to sign an enforcement letter as a “zoning enforcement officer” which she never was, according to Perry’s testimony. He said, according to the court findings and deposition, he ordered her to stop signing letters as a zoning enforcement officer and to destroy business cards carrying that title.

One has to ask how an illegal unit could have survived in plain sight for so long, through various inspections by the building department, through discovery by assessors of the unit in 1989 … and still no citations brought against the owner who started it all.

Selective enforcement or politics? Not what you know, but who you know? Or a case of missing paperwork? It is unfortunate that a progressive amnesty program should be tainted by isolated instances like this one and another one several years ago in which a real estate agent bought a house and tried to divvy it up into multiple units by lying on her affordable housing application. At least one town employee left his job soon thereafter.

The distress caused to Limoncelli and Russo for simply buying a house, being faulted by the court for not practicing due diligence and fighting something gone bad, goes on as the town, as is its right, appeals the civil court decision favoring the plaintiff’s plea for grandfathering.

Morally and historically, however, selective enforcement has been considered a precursor of tyranny and an abuse of power, allowing as it does, inequitable enforcement of the law. The court has favored Limoncelli, interestingly enough, on the basis of missing town paperwork.